Whānau Tahi up for Microsoft health sector award

Health IT firm Whānau Tahi is in the running in the health category of the 2016 Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards, thought to be the first New Zealand company to be nominated in the health sector.

The west Auckland-based company, owned by Te Whanau O Waipareira Trust, has been active in developing software-led solutions such as its Navigator for indigenous and vulnerable people in several countries, including the US, Canada, Australia and Singapore as well as NZ.

Last year, the company bought the CCMS shared care planning technology assets of HSAGlobal and has since renamed it Whānau Tahi Connected Care.

Whānau Tahi CEO Stephen Keung said Waipareira had decided six years ago to develop technology to help improve outcomes.

“Our tools give whānau the ability to take charge of their health and evidence shows that once you give ownership of wellbeing to those at need, they take more interest and outcomes improve,” Mr Keung said.

Whānau Tahi has a memorandum of understanding with Family First, an African American community organisation in Atlanta, and recently signed one with Los Angeles-based American Indian Involvement Inc.

It also participated in 2015 in a global access program run by the UCLA Anderson School of Management to develop a strategic business plan for Whānau Tahi to enter the US market through a business platform to deliver an IT solution to indigenous Americans.